Apple Celebrates Five Years of the App Store, Most Popular Titles Listed, Some Go Free

Enjoy some of the iTunes App Stores' most popular apps and games for free as the store celebrates its fifth birthday on 10 July.

Land of the Big Numbers

Not long after announcing 50 billion app downloads, and among claims that most apps are never-downloaded zombies, Apple is having a fifth birthday give-away on the App Store (in the U.S., U.K., and some other territories) for iOS devices with free titles from among some of the most popular to grace the store. Among the apps are Barefoot World Atlas, How to Cook Everything and Traktor DJ for iPhone, which is pretty much something for everyone.

On the games front, you can get the sword-swinging Infinity Blade II, Tiny Wings and Disney's Where's My Water, among others for nothing (watch out for paid DLC though). There's a bit of a difference between iPhone and iPad when it comes to the top ten lists, with games more dominant on the phone.

UPDATE: More titles are being added to the free giveaway, most recently the popular Angry Birds Star Wars. Look for others on the store to see if anything else is added to the list.

Most popular free iPad apps:

Skype for iPad

The Weather Channel for iPad

Netflix

Angry Birds HD Free

Kindle

Facebook

Pandora Radio

Calculator for iPad Free

Fruit Ninja HD Free

Words With Friends HD Free

Most popular free iPhone apps:

Facebook

Pandora Radio

Instagram

YouTube

Skype

Words With Friends Free

The Weather Channel

Twitter

Temple Run

Google Search

For The Next Five Years?

Given Steve Jobs was initially opposed to apps, as he wanted everything to run on the browser, and the fact we now have Firefox phones launching to push an all-browser environment, is there time to put the genie back in the bottle, now HTML 5 is with us?

Probably not, given the vested interests at play in keeping ecosystems like Apple's running, even if HTML 5 can handle the games, security issues and other areas that still crop up as roadblocks to adoption.

Certainly if Apple focuses more on games then expect the big-name publishers to compete then the store itself might lose some of that crazed ingenuity that developers populate it with, and as Microsoft and Google keep throwing out their big apps across all ecosystems, the app charts might start to look rather boring and familiar.

Beyond that, with cars playing a big part in the next phase of iOS 7, expect the automakers to have apps for almost every model and integratable feature of their cars to ensure their brand is high on your list of app essentials.